DH has become totally unsupportive of my career / business

[SparklyGreenKoala]

I have been a SAHM for a while and with my youngest a few years into primary school, I decided to start my a business with a friend.
It’s a business where the bulk of the work will need to be done during the weekends, so I am out most of Saturday and Sunday but this also means I am completely present the other 5 days.

At first, my husband was very supportive but he has become increasingly dismissive and patronising, because the business hasn’t yet turned a profit. It’s only been going for 3.5 years and it will take time to become established and profitable; He thinks it’s a waste of time and that I should do something else, but I love what I do. I get so much satisfaction from my work, I couldn’t imagine doing something else.

However, his main gripe is he doesn’t have the weekends free to himself and he is carrying more of the burden than me. I have tried to ignore this but he just becomes very shouty, accusing me of having a jolly whilst he has to deal a job he hates.

I accept, it’s not going to be easy, and I have arranged a cleaner to come on Friday afternoons, so there is no house work for him to do on Saturday mornings. However, the complaining hasn’t stopped and he has started to involve the wider family.

Am inbeing reasonable in asking him to support me.

You could earn £12k as a TA working weekdays (obviously not weekends!) when your kids are at school and spend very little on childcare-especially if you are at a nearby school.

Her kids aren't tiny, just-started-school age, either. She said "a few years into primary school", she decided to start her business, which she's been running for 3.5 years already.

Guaranteed her kids are teens, at least in secondary education already.

Absolutely no need for her to "be present for five days a week", and she's not spending six months of the year "looking after them". Just a massive chancer who wants her husband to work 5 days a week to support her and do all the childcare for at least half the year when he's not working.

Not at all, I'm perfectly happy. You on the other hand are strangely defensive of someone who's clearly taking the piss.

I can guarantee that the OP will be doing admin, networking, product/supply sourcing and advertising during the week on top of getting kids to school, and doing chores etc. Yes the kids are in school - till what? 3.00 ? 3.30 (out of that loop now so not sure if standard school hours) and if she has multiple children at different schools plus hobbies and activities to facilitate then I'd say she's using her time pretty well.

It sounds as though the DH is not having nice conversations about work life balance and reaching a workable compromise - he's being dismissive and shouting. Perhaps if he used his words and his indoor voice the OP could find ways to facilitate everyone's apparent needs including her own. Because of course, that is always the woman's job too....

Yes. Nothing else to add.😊

How is she running the household?

You don't know that. The timeline puts her kids at secondary age. They may well be getting their own way to and from school.

Reading all your replies, you are not being unreasonable. £12,000 for working two days a week doing something you love is fine.

You work two days a week and childcare five days a week, he works five days a week and childcare two days a week. It seems fair to me.

You've done the bulk of the housework and childcare for several years, and you are entitled to a life outside of motherhood. Your husband should be encouraging you.

It doesn't matter that he has no free time on weekends for 6 months of the year, must mums have to put up with that 24/7.

I’m actually just questioning your business acumen.

Profit has nothing to do with repaying loans, so when you say not lost money do you mean it’s not cash flow generative but is in fact making a profit? If it can sustain three salaries it seems reasonable enough, but giving up all summer weekends seems a big compromise.

And why do you need a cleaner? What are you doing when you’re “present” all week?

Neither do you. As I said, we're short on variables here, but these things are real possibilities and worth considering in a discussion.

If the op returns and says this post is a reverse some posters will get whiplash trying to reverse position.

The lengths people go to on here to make the man unreasonable is ridiculous.

I would not be happy with DH working every weekend even if he was earning a tidy profit.
When is your family time? When is your time to spend with your husband? When do you go on days out?
You’re like ships passing in the night and with barely even anything to show for it. Get a week day part time job if you need a job. This isn’t ok

Is there any way that your DH could drop down to a four day week and you could work Friday & Saturday, instead of Saturday-Sunday for example.

And maybe drop the cleaner and ensure you do the cleaning Monday-Thur when the kids are at school, to offset some of the cost of him dropping down in days?

Then he gets time off when the kids are at school, as well as spending less time at a job he hates, you all get a family day (Sunday) and you get to keep working on the business you love.

If, for example, it is an ice-cream stall that you have, as someone suggested above, there are plenty of places that would be busy in summer on a Friday.

Small problem: there has to be teaching assistant vacancies, and she would have to get the job over other applicants.

OP is spending the other six months of the year looking after the children, why isn't it fair? OP spent all her weekends looking after her small kids up until they went to school. It's his kids too, not only her kids.

Presumably they are BOTH looking after the children the other six months of the year. The children are at school, OP is a SAHM during that time, and BOTH have the children at the weekends.

The one thing that this man can't be accused of is acting as if they're not his kids too.

Except OP's children are in (at least) the latter years of primary school so what childcare is she doing for five days a week, exactly?

What is his suggestions for improving the situation? You both need to be happy. I'd be pretty pissed off about never seeing my partner at weekends, missing social events etc. £12k is a very small compensation for all of that.

No, I don't. But I'm not "guaranteeing" her (your words) to be some kind of house-running angel ferrying her kids around all day, whereas you are. You have no clue what she's doing while she's "being present at home for five days a week".

She just sounds like a workshy chancer to me.

OP is not doing childcare five days a week. The children are at school, and late primary age. At a push she does the school run and maybe a couple of hours after they get home.
He has them all day both weekend days, on top of working full time five days a week

If that's true and she's spending the 25 (at least) she has during the week on the business as well as the weekends then she's really not earning that well; she's earning less than minimum wage.

Yabvu, you have all week to yourself with kids at school, while dh is doing a job he hates, what on earth do you need to pay a cleaner on a Friday for!!!! Then at the weekend you should be spending time as a family. But dh solo parents all day (you solo parent on school days) while you have a jolly not making any money- I’m self employed and turned a profit after 6 months. You may as well be off on spa weekends every weekend. Your poor dh

Getting the kids up and ready for school, school runs, homework, dinner, bedtimes, cleaning and household management during the day.

Don't dismiss women's unpaid labour.

OP can find herself a job for the other six months of a year. But, OP didn't wrote: we have financial difficulties because I work only 52 days a year. OP wrote that her husband isn't happy for her to work 52 days a year, the excuse is that she doesn't bring enough money and he needs to spend the weekend looking after their children.

OP do you need more money or your husband is earning enough? Is his problem that you don’t earn enough money for the family or that he has to look after the kids during weekends? It's a big difference if the problem is not having enough money for the family because you don't work or only because he's not happy to spend weekends with his kids.

None of the things on your list make up the equivalent of a full-time job, especially when OP says she hires a cleaner and has no children during the day as they're all in school.

It's nothing to do with "a woman's unpaid labour".

@slore But I do all that and work full time, albeit flexible hours that enables me to do school pick ups.